To the editor:
Letter writer Carol Weaver (Stop crying support solutions) thinks an assault weapons ban and a gun buy-back will help stop the violence.
Sorry, Carol, but as an almost 40-year veteran police officer (and chief), it just doesn’t work.
We tried an assault weapons ban from 1994-2004, and it had zero effect on crime or shootings.
We banned heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine. How’s that worked out?
There are 80 million Americans, owning more than 350 million legal guns, who did not commit a crime today.
We are a cowardly society so politically correct that we will not name the real problem. Well, I will. It’s people; violent, often-deranged people who belong locked up.
NYC billionaire Mayor Bloomberg wants to ban guns, but he won’t tell you that nine out of 10 people arrested in NYC for illegal guns are never sentenced to the one-year minimum mandatory prison term. He won’t tell you he has private armed security and NYPD protecting him every day.
The media won’t tell you that some states don’t bother sharing psychiatric records with the federal gun check program, as required by law.
Sadly, police cannot protect you. I am living proof. Three years ago, I was robbed at gunpoint in a hotel at a police convention with 300 cops only 30 feet away. I caught the perpetrator outside with my own gun.
Gun laws and gun bans only affect law-abiding citizens. Just ask any criminal.
Chief John Comparetto, retired
Ocean Isle Beach